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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389340">Disintegration Machine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/64K/pseuds/64K'>64K</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Canon, References to Depression, headcanon heavy, there's a bit of a crush on Dimitri's side but they're mostly friends</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:13:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,947</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389340</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/64K/pseuds/64K</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A week after Claire finds herself in the future, she and Dimitri sit down to talk about what's happened over these last ten years, and about what he plans to do next, all the while desperately trying to ignore how they are both falling apart, atom by atom.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Allen &amp; Claire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Disintegration Machine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He's changed so much, and yet somehow, not at all.</p><p>Dimitri still falls asleep at his desk, except now, the bags under his eyes make it seem as though he never sleeps at all. He's still as disorganized as ever, only, he's somehow grown worse than he ever was ten years ago. What looks like ten years' worth of papers lie scattered across his desk, Dimitri's sleeping head resting square in the middle of the mess.</p><p>It's comforting to know that not everything changed while Claire was gone.</p><p>A quiet smile slowly establishes itself on Claire's face as she looks down at him, his face nearly smothered by crumpled papers and notebooks. Quietly, she reaches out, shuffling the papers into her hands, attempting to assemble them into something resembling a coherent stack. She'd have thought that, without her around to clean up after him, Dimitri would have adapted, but she thought wrong. It seems, in that way, Dimitri's the same as he always was.</p><p>He'd always been disorganized, back during uni, and the type to fall asleep any place, any time. He pulled all-nighters when he didn't need to; his free time was always used up by studying. Claire remembers when she'd go out with Brenda, Clark, and Hershel, hoping to unwind over a cup of tea before exams. She'd ask Dimitri if he'd like to come along, and he'd look away, explain that he was too tired, or that he needed to study. It's funny how someone as passionate as Dimitri, who could gush for hours about his dreams of time travel, or the interesting paper he'd read on recent developments in neuroimaging, could be so withdrawn when it came to spending time with others.</p><p>Of course, before she'd brought him out of his shell, <em>Hershel </em>used to be like that, too.</p><p>Claire's hands are clumsy; the edges of the papers refuse to line up in the way she wants. She fiddles with them, over and over. Her smile fades, and tension builds up in her stomach. This should be simple. Why do her hands refuse to do what she tells them to do? She built a <em>time machine</em>, for goodness' sake—</p><p>Her hands slip <em>through</em> the paper.</p><p>The pile cascades to the floor, papers blowing every which way. Claire falls to her knees, holding her hands before her face. They're shaking, and she stares through them. They seem… translucent, or maybe that's only her eyes playing tricks on her. But they aren't. Her molecules are stretched thin, pulled by Time itself. Her body doesn't belong here. It doesn't belong to <em>her</em> anymore. She's already dead.</p><p>Claire struggles to breathe. She already died once. She doesn't want to die again. She doesn't want the world to go on without her any more than it already has. She wants to visit Brenda again. She wants to pick up where she left off with Hershel. She doesn't want—</p><p>"Claire?"</p><p>Claire blinks back tears, looking up slowly. Dimitri lifts his head slowly, blinking with bleary eyes. Then, clarity dawns in his eyes, and he jumps up from his chair, nearly falling over the desk as he runs to her side. "Claire, are you alright?"</p><p>His hand moves toward her shoulder.</p><p>"Don't."</p><p>He freezes, and Claire winces, ashamed. He didn't do anything wrong. She's just so afraid of her body failing her yet again, of his hand moving <em>through</em> her instead of against her. The sensation of the papers moving through her hand was awful, and she doesn't want to feel something so horrible again. "I'm alright," she says lightly, smiling as if there's nothing wrong. "I… I only dropped—"</p><p>"Oh, I'm sorry." Dimitri hastily scoops the papers off of the floor. Most of them fall out of his arms again on the first go, and he makes several more attempts, until he's holding about half of them. "I didn't mean for you to have to clean this up." He walks back toward his desk, sheets fluttering toward the floor as he walks, and dumps them all back on top of where Claire had taken them from. "There. Much better."</p><p>Despite herself, Claire has to struggle to hold back a giggle. She'd struggled so much over those papers, and he's made an even worse mess now than they'd started with. "You haven't changed at all," she laughs, and then stops; she's afraid that laughter will develop into tears.</p><p>Dimitri looks over his shoulder toward her. His eyes are so tired. "I… well." He coughs. "I could say the same about you."</p><p>They're both silent for what seems like hours, until Claire realizes that she's still kneeling on the ground. She stands, slowly, and lets out a nervous chuckle as she brushes the wrinkles out of her clothes. "Sorry," she says, not knowing what else to say. "I'm making things awkward, aren't I?"</p><p>"No, no, not at all."</p><p>Dimitri stands there, his back to her, for a long while, until he startles, as if he just remembered that she was still standing there. "Please, sit down," he says, gesturing vaguely about the room.</p><p>Claire looks around, until she notices a chair in the corner of the room. She sits, and Dimitri sits down behind his desk in turn, fiddling with the papers. The silence is heavy; all that Claire can hear are the fans, blowing the hot air of Dimitri's Future London around the room, and the rustling of his papers.</p><p>Future London. The true London is "Future London" to her. So many little things have changed in ten years. New buildings have been added to Gressenheller; half of her old professors have retired. Hershel got the professor job he'd been dreaming of. She can't find anything about her sister… Claire doesn't know if Celeste is alive or dead. She wishes she apologized to her, before…</p><p>"What is all this, Dimitri?" She asks the question to distract herself, but she truly does want to know. Why did he build 'Future London?' Why does he have his own personal mafia roaming the streets?</p><p>"What do you mean?" He doesn't look up from his papers, staring through them.</p><p>"What have you been doing for… for ten years? What is this place?"</p><p>Dimitri is quiet. Finally, he looks up, but doesn't look her in the eye, staring over her shoulder. "I've been doing what we used to do. I've been building a… a time machine. All this…" He gestures towards the window, towards the bustling streets of 'Chinatown' below. "...It's simply security measures. A city where no one will bother me, and where everyone who lives here believes in my mission." He smiles insincerely. "Don't worry. Everyone is here of their free will—well, most people, at least."</p><p>A time machine. Claire's breath catches in her throat. How could he still believe in such drivel? She bites her lip. "You never… tried doing anything else?" she starts, forcing her voice to stay calm. "After what happened to me?"</p><p>Dimitri pauses, then glances back down at his papers. "No." He holds a pen between his papers, idly scribbling in a notebook. "I… tried." His smile fades slowly, disappearing more every second. "But I couldn't. I just… couldn't fathom doing anything else. It was my fault, you know," he says, looking at her suddenly. "It was my fault that it… it exploded. That flaw… I should have noticed it earlier. I—"</p><p>"Don't."</p><p>For the second time today, Dimitri freezes, and Claire covers her mouth, wishing she could take back that harsh word. "I'm… sorry," she says again, softly. "It's just… it wasn't your fault."</p><p>It was hers. It was her own stupid fault that she died. She'd been swept away, drunk on the idea of making history. And she had. She'd killed herself, and others, innocents who weren't fueled by hubris the way she was; she'd caused senseless destruction that would never fade from the minds of the families of those who had died.</p><p>"It was, but I appreciate the sentiment." Dimitri leans back in his chair, eyes empty. "And I know. You're going to tell me that I should have moved on, that I should have continued along with my life. But I couldn't. I couldn't even get out of bed most days, not for months. I couldn't stop thinking about that day. Bill took everything. The money, the research… I might have even forgiven him if he'd only admitted it all and tried to fix the mess he made. But he didn't. He didn't care at all."</p><p>"I'm sorry," Claire says again, not knowing what else to say. The idea of Bill betraying them like that… it hurt. The three of them were a team, and, even if Bill was prickly at the best of times, she'd thought that he truly cared about the work that they did. The idea that he was only after money—she didn't want to dwell on it.</p><p>"Don't be." Dimitri's pen moves back and forth across the paper. "You're the one who… who was hurt the most by all of this. That's why I got the idea to build the time machine. I…" He swallows. "I wanted to bring you back. You were… <em>are,</em> my best friend, and I… I couldn't think about anything else. And I'm going to succeed. I have to. I have to change the past. I'm going to save you."</p><p>"Dimitri, I…" Claire trails away. She can't look him in the eye. This is her fault. Ten years of his life, wasted, consumed by the idea of bringing her back to life, obsessed with chasing a dream that she, he, and Bill should have abandoned before they'd ever started. He has to stop. She stands, striding towards his desk. "Look at me," she says sharply, holding up her hands. They're shaking, pale, almost translucent, the blue of her veins glowing in the dim light of the office. "You need to stop. I'm falling apart. I'm already… I'm already dead. And you'll die too, if you try this."</p><p>Dimitri stops, his gaze growing cold. "I wouldn't do this if I weren't sure of myself, Claire—"</p><p>"You would. It's all you've thought about for ten years, isn't it? You'd be glad to die if it'd bring me back, wouldn't you?"</p><p>Dimitri blinks, and then he looks down, his gaze boring a hole through his desk. "Claire, please… understand," he starts, his voice weak. "This… this is all that's kept me holding on, all these years. And I'm positive that this machine will work. I have the best scientists in the world working on the thing."</p><p>"I was positive too, back then," Claire stares through her hands. "And yet I failed. We can't play with Time, or master it. It's too strong for us. You have to move past this, Dimitri. We both have to."</p><p>She doesn't want him to fall apart any more than she already has. She doesn't want him to meet her fate.</p><p>"I can't." His voice is shaking as much as her hands are. "I tried, Claire, I tried. But I wasn't strong enough. What else can I do? What else is there?"</p><p>What can she say?</p><p>
  <em>You can make new friends. You can… pick up a new hobby. You are your own person. Your life doesn't have to revolve around me.</em>
</p><p>A thousand thoughts flash through her head, but she doesn't speak. He won't listen to reason—of course he won't, not after ten years pursuing the singular goal of saving her life. Nothing she says will make him feel better, or make her feel better. Her life is over, and she worries that, without her here, his will be as well.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was written for an anonymous requester on Tumblr, who wanted a story about Dimitri and Claire having a talk about moving on. I'm sorry that it wound up so depressing... I might try to write a follow-up at some point, taking place at the end of Unwound Future, or after Unwound Future. It was fun trying to write Claire and Dimitri; they're both such neat characters. I borrowed the title from a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short story. That story has very little to do with this story, but it's sci-fi, and Dimitri and Claire are scientists, and I really liked the title so I thought I'd borrow it.</p><p>Thank you for taking the time to read!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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